Continuous presence is a video conferencing feature that permits participants in a conference to see multiple other participants simultaneously. Continuous presence features are included in some multi-point control units (MCUs) that manage video presentation to endpoints in a video conference session. Continuous presence enabled MCUs can transmit a composite video stream including two or more individual video streams showing respective conference participants to one or more video conferencing endpoints. The composite video stream can be presented in a video layout structure that includes a respective area for each included individual video stream. An MCU can transmit layout and video position information position for a given individual video stream in a layout can be assigned by an MCU and transmitted along with the composite video to multiple endpoints.